Archive of Recorded Sound

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Denis Condon (1933-2012) trained at the Sydney Conservatory and became a music teacher and educator. He developed an interest in the reproducing player piano when his father purchased an Ampico piano when Denis was fifteen. Over the next sixty years he amassed a collection of over 7500 piano rolls and ten instruments, which has recently come to Stanford.

Archive news

The Archive of Recorded Sound (ARS) has recently begun cataloging Irish folk music recordings donated by the family of Thomas Quilter. The collection features items representing a significant span of Irish and Irish-American music from the 1910s to the 1980s and a progression in performance practices leading up to and including the revival of Irish traditional folk music.

In November 2014, I posted a blog detailing a very small roll (4.5" wide) that staff at the Archive of Recorded Sound had uncovered among the reproducing piano rolls in the Denis Condon Collection of Reproducing Pianos and Rolls. It was discovered that the roll was designed to be used with a toy, a type of player saxophone called the Playasax, produced by Q.R.S. I am very pleased to announce that the Archive, just yesterday, acquired an actual Playasax along with four additional rolls, thanks to a generous donation by Kristine Sturgill. This donation will make up the Otto M. Slater Playasax Collection, named in honor of Mrs Sturgill's father, who passed away earlier this year.